fare.”
Octavius shuffled his feet in his Hessian boots, striking his greasy head on a hanging lantern. “That’s it, Doctor, and I’m feeling so poorly I cannot attend to my duties.”
“I’ve a tonic that should help if you’ll just wait until I’ve seen to Mr. McGilp.”
Octavius dropped down on a stool and fixed his black eyes on the canvas curtain.
Morgan Evans was the next to appear. He stood beside Octavius and tugged the woollen sock from his head.
“What afflicts you, Morgan?” asked Osmund Brockley, coming towards him with a reeking chamber pot that required dumping into the ocean.
“I missed the mark doing my repairs and smashed my left hand with my hammer,” he responded in a muted tone, studying the cracks in the floorboards.
“Mr. Evans,” said Leander without turning around, “I have never known you to injure yourself with your hammer before. Is this nonsense?”
“No, sir,” said Morgan quickly, holding up the swollen fingers of his left hand.
“Fine. I will attend to you after Mr. Lindsay. Take a seat where you can find one.”
Morgan sank to the floor while Leander completed his examination of the coxswain. “Mr. McGilp, there is no evidence of swollen glands. May I suggest you wear a jacket and extra scarf while standing at the helm, especially during the night when there is much dew on deck.”
Lewis jumped down from the table. “Aye, sir, thank you, sir.”
Leander cleaned away the pool of ink on his desk then made a brief note in his journal. When at last he wheeled about to signal to Mr. Lindsay to come forward, he discovered a crowd of sailors standing in the hospital doorway, all waiting their turn, their wide eyes fixed on the private corner where Emily lay.
Osmund rolled his oversized tongue about. “They say they’ve either taken in some bad water or ingested too many weevils, sir.”
Leander folded his arms across his slender frame. “Gentlemen, unless you have fallen from the shrouds, broken your neck, or are bleeding profusely, I would ask that you come back later when there is sufficient air in here for us all to breathe.”
The men, excluding Octavius Lindsay and Morgan Evans, all shuffled out grumbling to themselves. Osmund broke into a succession of guffaws that sounded like the brays of a donkey, while Mr. Harding, the sailing master, keenly watched their departure from his hammock, his footless leg propped up at a forty-five-degree angle.
“Doctor,” he said with a grin, “I fear it’s not your services that brought them down here.”
“That is abundantly obvious,” replied Leander, uncrossing his arms. “Now, Mr. Lindsay, about that tonic …”
* * *
AT EIGHT BELLS, when his morning watch had ended, Gus Walby wandered into the hospital holding the first volume of Sense and Sensibility.
“May I read to Miss Emily, Doctor?”
Leander laid a long finger to his lips. “I just scared a dozen men away. If they learn you have been allowed to stay, I’ll be walking the plank at midnight. She’s only now awakened, Mr. Walby, and hasn’t yet taken breakfast.” He reached for the bowl and plate on his desk. “Her porridge is cold, but she may like some biscuits.”
Gus tucked his book under one arm and took the food from Leander. He walked carefully to Emily’s canvas corner, cleared his throat, and awaited her invitation to enter.
A landsman named Mr. Crump, who had just lost a leg to Leander’s blade the previous day, looked up from his nearby cot.
“Doctor, why would ya be turnin’ away all those sailors and allowin’ the likes of Mr. Walby a chance ta see her?”
“For the simple reason that Mr. Walby has only good intentions and I fear the other men do not.”
Leander, who was now moving from cot to cot, re-dressing wounds and checking for signs of infection, listened with great interest to the conversation behind the canvas.
“Good morning,” Gus chirped, setting Emily’s breakfast down on a shelf near the gunport.
“Good morning, Gus.” Emily tried raising herself in her cot, an action that sent a shot of pain down her arm. She gritted her teeth. “Better stay where I am,” she admitted finally. She lay back on her pillows and looked up at Gus. The sight of his youthful, innocent face warmed her heart.
“Did you have a good rest, Em?”
“I did, but only once the doctor gave me some laudanum. I recall hearing your mates above deck singing tunes about reckless sailors and cans of grog. And I suspect the doctor gave me some of that as well.” Emily noticed she was wearing a nightshirt and quietly wondered when and how she had been placed in it.
“The men dance and sing on deck every night they can unless the weather is poor.”
“Even when they’ve lost friends in battle?”
“That’s when they need it most, Em. Takes their minds off sad things.”
“I see.”
“Are you hungry?”
“I’ll take breakfast later, thanks.” She did not want to tell him that the hospital smells had quite put her off eating.
Gus stepped closer to her cot. “May I ask how you broke your ankle?”
“I was fleeing a monster who stank like a manure patch.”
Gus’s eyes widened. “Was it the captain of the Serendipity?”
“No. It was his toady, Lind.”
“And did you jump overboard?”
“I did.”
“You were very brave to do so,” said Gus, looking quite impressed.
Emily lowered her voice. “Thanks to your gunners’ accuracy, an explosion of grapeshot tore through the stern windows, striking Lind down just as he was about to tie me up in the captain’s privy. I jumped out the broken windows and landed on something … a fallen mast, I believe.”
“Why was that man, Lind, going to tie you up in the privy?”
From within the dark hospital came the doctor’s insistent voice. “Mr. Walby, I understood you came by to read to Miss Emily.”
Gus’s face registered a look of guilt. “Oh! Would you like me to begin reading now?”
“Please.” Emily relaxed in the cot, a small smile on her lips, and listened to Gus’s sweet voice as he read Jane Austen’s book. She turned her head towards the opened gunport. The ocean waves of green, blue, and turquoise were strangely calming this morning. She watched them rise and fall, thankful for the light and a view to the outside world.
When she
